A writer looks at a sentence. The sentence is grammatical, but wordy, dull, and difficult to understand. The writer wants to make the sentence succinct, lively, and easier to read. Where does the writer begin?
The problems facing the writer arise from infinite combinations of unnecessary words, passive voice, weak verbs, and convoluted construction. For years, writing texts and teachers have addressed these problems using technical terms—participle, idiom, subjunctive, relative pronoun—or generally advised writers to add vigor to their sentences by writing in the active voice. Nothing offers the writer an editing method that is quick, precise, repeatable, and productive.
The most revered of all writing texts is Strunk and White's classic, The Elements of Style. The heart of this book is Rule 13, “Omit needless words,” and the often quoted lines:                “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” (p. 17)        
Strunk and White add, “[m]any expressions in common use violate this principle:” They list seven examples:                “the question as to whether        there is no doubt but that        used for fuel purposes        he is a man who        in a hasty manner        this is a subject that        his story is a strange one”        
Strunk and White intended the list to exemplify common ways writers express themselves using too many words. Millions more exist, and a writer cannot memorize them all.
The most widely read and acclaimed book on writing for lawyers is Richard Wydick's Plain English for Lawyers. Wydick titles Chapter Two, “Omit Surplus Words.” Two sections form the core of the chapter: “Avoid Compound Constructions” and “Avoid Word-Wasting Idioms.” Wydick's list of “Compound Constructions” is: (p. 11)                “at that point in time        by means of        by reason of        by virtue of        for the purpose of        for the reason that        in accordance with        inasmuch as        in connection with        in favor of        in order to        in relation to        in the nature of        prior to        subsequent to        with a view to        with reference to”        
In his section “Avoid Word-Wasting Idioms,” Wydick writes, “Likewise, words like case, instance, and situation spawn verbosity:                in some instances the parties can        in many cases you will find        that was a situation in which the court        RICO claims are now more frequent than was formerly the case        injunctive relief is required in the situation in which        in the majority of instances the grantor”        
But how does even a competent writer or editor distinguish between “idioms” and “compound constructions” and keep track of the thousands of each that can arise?
A writer makes a wordy sentence even more dull and difficult to read by using passive voice and nominalizations (nouns that should be verbs). The frequent use of passive voice is the most infamous of all writing problems. Teachers and texts constantly remind writers to avoid it, yet few writers know how to recognize it, how to make it active, or when it is necessary.
Strunk and White have little to say about passive voice: “The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive.” And, “This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice, which is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.” And, “The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing.” (p. 13). They give examples but do not say how to recognize it or when it is necessary. They even confuse the reader by talking about “transitive verbs in the active voice,” which has little to do with the passive voice problem.
When Wydick discusses passive voice (pp. 27-9), he offers only vague clues on how to recognize it, nothing direct, specific, and repeatable; then, like Strunk and White, he tells the writer to prefer the active voice; and last, unlike Strunk and White, he gives four situations in which the passive voice may be proper. But the writer still has no method for recognizing it and no guidance for making it active.
Another writing text that addresses passive voice is The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage, by then Assistant Managing Editor of The New York Times, Theodore M. Bernstein, (1965, Atheneum). Similar to the explanations found in many writing and grammar texts, Bernstein describes passive voice like this: “When the subject of the verb is the agent performing an action, and the object is that which is acted upon, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject of the verb is the recipient of the action, the verb is in the passive voice.” (p. 13). Abstract explanations like this make the passive voice problem sound mysterious and unsolvable. Bernstein mentions nothing about how to recognize quickly what might be a passive verb.
Nominalizations cause as much slowing and dulling as passive voice, but few people have even heard the word, let alone know how to recognize one. Like passive voice, a few nominalizations are necessary, but usually a writer should convert them to their verb form. Strunk and White do not discuss nominalizations. Neither does Bernstein. Wydick warns against using them and suggests: “You can spot most of the common nominalizations by their endings:
almentantenceionentancyencyanceity”To help them spot nominalizations, then, the writer and editor must memorize and search for all ten of these suffixes.
Despite hundreds of writing texts that have tried to explain what makes a sentence wordy or dull, despite all of the lists of useless words, intelligent people still write like this:
A high school senior in Honors English with a 3.9 GPA:                It was during this time that many citizens, particularly students, came to the realization that Sun Yat-sen's three principles of the people had not yet been accomplished through the bloody hardships of war.        
A lawyer:                It should be noted that an oral notice of intent to renew, where a written notice is required under the terms of the lease, is sufficient to constitute an effective exercise of the option.        
The editors of the Harvard Management Communication Letter in an article on writing:                The writer wants to ask a question about whether or not investors will learn from the crash in prices.        
And the Dean of Admissions at Stanford University:                Although it has been argued that emphasizing the Achievement Tests in admissions, rather than SATs, would improve the quality of American secondary school education and consequently better prepare students for  college, it is also true that requiring such tests could unfairly penalize disadvantaged students in the college admissions process.        
All of these are grammatical, intelligent sentences, but they are not nearly as clear and taut as the writers could have produced (even though the last two were also professionally edited for publication); and each example comes from among myriad sentences with similar problems.
The problem of wordy, dull sentences pervades even the most august of our literary references. Few people would quibble that Fowler's Modern English Usage, The Chicago Manual of Style, and The Oxford English Dictionary are at the pinnacle of reference works relied upon by writers and editors. Yet:
Fowler's explains “reduplicated words” like this:                Most of us find an engaging quality in these words. Perhaps that is because it is through them that we enter the world of speech . . .        
The Chicago Manual of Style contains this sentence, elaborating on Americans preferring to place punctuation inside the quotation mark:                In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication.        
And the editors of The Oxford English Dictionary define “redundancy” as:                The incorporation of extra parts in the design of a mechanical or electronic system in such a way that its function is not impaired in the event of a failure.        
Programmers have designed software to help writers spot problems electronically. By far the most popular editing software is Microsoft Word, which gives the writer “Readability Statistics.” This tells the writer how many paragraphs, sentences, words, and characters are in the selection, plus the average number of characters per word, words per sentence, and sentences per paragraph. It can signal “long sentence” or “wordiness” or “contraction use.” It tells the percentage of passive sentences (which sometimes is inaccurate). And it assigns the passage a “Readability Grade Level” according to something called the “Flesch-Kincaid” test. But the real problem with readability has little to do with how many words are in a sentence or how many syllables are in a word.
Apply Microsoft Word's® grammar checker to this sentence . . .                There's really no choice in the matter.        
. . . and it tells the writer that the sentence is written at a fourth grade level, then suggests that the writer remove the contraction:                There's really no choice in the matter.        There is really no choice in the matter.        
According to Word®, the writer cannot improve the sentence beyond this. If the intelligent writers above apply Microsoft Word's® grammar checker to their sentences, the program offers the following advice:
The high school senior:                It was during this time that many citizens, particularly students, came to the realization that Sun Yat-sen's three principles of the people had not yet been accomplished through the bloody hardships of war.        
Word® notes that “Yat-sen's” is “Not in the dictionary.” It also tells the writer that the sentence is passive (it doesn't say where) and written at a 12th Grade level. Word® says nothing else about the sentence.
The lawyer:                It should be noted that an oral notice of intent to renew, where a written notice is required under the terms of the lease, is sufficient to constitute an effective exercise of the option.        
Word® labels this sentence passive. It doesn't say the sentence contains two passive verbs, or where it's passive, or that the lawyer can correct anything else.
The Harvard editors:                The writer wants to ask a question about whether or not investors will learn from the crash in prices.        
Word® has nothing to say about this example, except that it is written at a seventh grade level.
The Stanford Dean of Admissions:                Although it has been argued that emphasizing the Achievement Tests in admissions, rather than SATs, would improve the quality of American secondary school education and consequently better prepare students for college, it is also true that requiring such tests could unfairly penalize disadvantaged students in the college admissions process.        
Here, Word® claims that the sentence is not passive (it is), rates the sentence at a 12th grade reading level, and indicates nothing else wrong.
If the editors of the three reference works above use the Word® grammar checker to comb their entries:
The editors at Fowler's will learn that Word® finds nothing wrong with their sentence:                Most of us find an engaging quality in these words. Perhaps that is because it is through them that we enter the world of speech . . .        
The editors at The Chicago Manual of Style will see Word® label the problem with their sentence as “wordiness” and suggest that they remove “fairly.” Without saying where or how to change it, Word® will also note that the sentence is passive, which it is, but another problem overrides that point. According to Word®, they cannot improve the rest of the sentence.                In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication.        In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication.        
The editors at The Oxford English Dictionary will discover that Word® highlights “not impaired,” then diagnoses the problem as “wordiness,” and offers “no suggestions.” Word® also will highlight “the event” and suggest that the editors replace those words with “case.” That's the end of Word's® assessment.                The incorporation of extra parts in the design of a mechanical or electronic system in such a way that its function is not impaired in the event of a failure.        The incorporation of extra parts in the design of a mechanical or electronic system in such a way that its function is not impaired in case of a failure.        
Imagine a law firm partner who expects to spend one to two hours reviewing and editing an associate's brief, but instead has to spend five or six hours, and cannot bill for that extra time; a corporate officer who receives several five-page reports from mid-level managers, when each manager could convey the same information in three or four pages; a copy editor who has to tighten a 500-page manuscript on deadline. Imagine a patent examiner who has to wade through thousands of unnecessary words to find the meaning the writer intends to convey. Then imagine that these writers had a method that helped them edit, so they could retain their individual voices, but convey the same meaning faster and in far fewer words.
That is the essence of good writing: Words that do not convey meaning to a reader not only are useless, they also get in the way of the words that are trying to convey meaning. They must come out.
If a writer could consistently delete even three words from a 12-15 word sentence, then 10 pages of words drops to fewer than eight pages, yet the writer still conveys the same meaning to the reader. For instance:
The high school senior could have written:                During this time many citizens, particularly students, realized that the bloody hardships of war had not accomplished Sun Yat-sen's three principles of the people.instead of:        It was during this time that many citizens, particularly students, came to the realization that Sun Yat-sen's three principles of the people had not yet been accomplished through the bloody hardships of war.        
The lawyer could have expressed a complicated thought more clearly, like this:                [Even] where the lease requires written notice, an oral notice of intent to renew exercises the option.instead of like this:        It should be noted that an oral notice of intent to renew, where a written notice is required under the terms of the lease, is sufficient to constitute an effective exercise of the option.        
The Harvard editors could have trimmed a little more:                The writer wants to question whether investors will learn from the crash. from what they started with:        The writer wants to ask a question about whether or not investors will learn from the crash in prices.        
And the dean needed far fewer words to say what she meant:                Emphasizing the Achievement Tests, rather than SATs, might improve American secondary school education and better prepare students for college; but requiring such tests could unfairly penalize disadvantaged students.rather than what she wrote:        Although it has been argued that emphasizing the Achievement Tests in admissions, rather than SATs, would improve the quality of American secondary school education and consequently better prepare students for college, it is also true that requiring such tests could unfairly penalize disadvantaged students in the college admissions process.        
Even our most popular reference texts on words and writing would improve by ridding sentences of unnecessary words and bringing them to life.
The sentences from Fowler's could have appeared like this:                Most of us find an engaging quality in these words. Perhaps that is because through them we enter the world of speech . . .instead of like this:        Most of us find an engaging quality in these words. Perhaps that is because it is through them that we enter the world of speech . . .        
In the Chicago style manual, we could have read the following sentence quickly and gone on to the next:                For nearly a century and a half, however, the American style seems to have worked fairly well.rather than having to read:        In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication.        
And in The Oxford English Dictionary we could have learned that a “redundancy” is:                Incorporating extra parts in a mechanical or electronic system so that if one part fails, the system will continue to function.yet the version we had to read defined it as:        The incorporation of extra parts in the design of a mechanical or electronic system in such a way that its function is not impaired in the event of a failure.        
A reader has to read every word the writer writes. The more useless words a reader has to sort through, the longer the reader takes to arrive at the writer's meaning. Because all writers intend to communicate, they would delete these useless words, enliven their sentences, and rearrange the sentences for greater clarity, if they knew how to detect and solve the problems. Nothing currently in text, electronic, or any other format reveals or addresses this, yet all writers and editors need this capability to refine their sentences.
There is, therefore, an unmet need in the art for a system and method for writing concise English which systematically identifies and removes useless words.